Institute of Archaeology

The Myth of Human Sacrifice

The anthropology of war

This research project being undertaken by Elizabeth Graham explores the idea that 'human sacrifice' is a Spanish construct and that the Maya rationalised socially sanctioned killing through warfare.

Burkhardt

Izeki

Leon Portilla (traditional
translation)

. . . thus we bleed ourselves,

. . .we bleed ourselves,

. . .in their names we bleed ourselves,

thus we make recompense, thus we cast incense, and thus
we kill things.

we (?), we burn (or put or place) copal, and we
kill them (something, not people, maybe animals)

our oaths we keep, incense we burn, and sacrifices
we offer

They said that it is by the gods that all live.

because they, gods, those who live by them

It was the doctrine of the elders that there is life
because of the gods;

They did penance for us.

They (=gods) made us valuable beings

with their sacrifice, they gave us life.

When? Where? when it was still the
time of darkness.

when, where, during the time of darkness.

When? Where? When there was still darkness.

Related outputs

2011 Maya
Christians and Their Churches in 16th-Century Belize. University Press of
Florida, Gainesville. (Chapter 2 is on
warfare, ‘sacrifice’ and socially sanctioned killing.)

2010 The Guardian/The Observer,
9 November. The Ancient World Series, Day 4: The Americas,
pp. 16-27. At a Maya market, The invention of chocolate, How to read Maya
script, Maya match of the day, Lifeblood of the Maya, The Maya gods, A culture
in ruins. (One section deconstructs the myth of human sacrifice.)

2009 Close
Encounters. In Maya Worldviews at Conquest, ed. by Leslie G. Cecil and
Timothy W. Pugh, 17-38. Boulder: University of Colorado Press. (A section is
devoted to warfare.)

2006 An Ethnicity to Know. In Maya Ethnicity: The Construction of
Ethnic Identity from Preclassic to Modern
Times, edited by Frauke Sachse, pp. 109-124. Acta Mesoamerica,
Vol. 19. Markt Schwaben: Verlag Anton Saurwein. (Data from Lamanai are used to
argue that the motivation for taking captives was related to tribute
appropriation in war.)

Papers presented

2009 Warfare and the Faces of Tribute. Moctezuma II Symposium, organised by
Elizabeth Baquedano and sponsored by the Institute of Historical Research, UL
and the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. 13th-14th March, London.

2008 Socially Sanctioned Killing in America, Then and Now. In the session ‘Socially Embedded Violence in
the Ancient Americas: Beyond Sacrifice and Cannibalism,’ organized by Miguel A.
Aguilera and Jane E. Buikstra. 73rd
Meeting, Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, BC, 26 to 30 March. (On
the myth of human sacrifice.)